Pretty Little Liars 509, 510 and 511 Extreme Mega Recap Blast

Hello, and welcome to everyone’s favorite show about a woman named Alison trying to find out what happened to a dead woman named Beth!

OB102

NOPE, THE OTHER ONE.

PLL509-00009

That’s the one! Away we go!


Episode 509: March of Crimes

When we last left the liars, Ali had just revealed that she used Noel Kahn to fake a break-in so Hanna’s mom wouldn’t question her story! Wow, what an interesting and horrifying choice, Ali! Spencer, Hanna and Emily have fucking finally come around to the idea that their loyalty to Ali actually hasn’t excepted them form her lies and manipulation, which is amazing because this is season five.

Flames, on the side of my face, breathing-breathl- heaving breaths.

Flames, on the side of my face, breathing-breathl- heaving breaths.

But before they have a chance to play the “What Kind Of Friend Does That” card, Ali plays the “Spencer Was Spying On Me, You’re All Terrible Friends” card.

“Yo, didn’t you just admit to lying to us? Spying seems like a reasonable response to that,” Spencer says. JUST KIDDING NO ONE SAYS ANYTHING BECAUSE NO ONE EVER ARGUES WITH ALI FOR SOME REASON.

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Well if we’re not going to take our tops off, I’m going home.

So Ali leaves, Spencer defends Melissa because she feels a lot of family feelings right now, Hanna drinks and laments Ali staying in her house, and Emily makes a bunch of comments that are too pointed, and we all have a gay old time!

The unfortunate side-effect of door-play

The unfortunate side effect of door play


Later, somewhere on the mean and unforgiving streets of Rosewood, Emily is riding her bike on the sidewalk and proceeds to lock it to nothing like she’s a white person in an infomercial. She hears Ali’s voice, but lo and behold, it’s Noel Kahn having a private listening party to recordings of Ali in the middle of the street with his windows down in the middle of the night.

The unchained bike is a symbol of Paige's freedom

What am I adjusting on my bike? I don’t even know. I bet Paige would know. I miss Paige.

It’s too dangerous, and I’m not taking anymore chances ok. Shana, please. Don’t fight me on this.

“A CLUE, A CLUE!” the studio audience says.

“WHERE?” Emily says.

“IN THE CAR WITH NOEL!”

We just figured out Blues Clues

We just figured out Blues Clues


The next morning, Hanna is getting ready for what I’m sure is her 500th day of senior year while Alison takes a shower. Her mom comes in and suggests that the three of them go shopping after school for BIG ENGAGEMENT PARTY stuff. (You may remember this engagement as the one between Aria’s mom and Zack, the dude who wants to hook up with Hanna and this party as the one A is totally going to ruin.)

Soooo....what is up? What's the 411? What has everybody been up to?

Soooo….what is up? What’s the 411? What has everybody been up to?

Hanna’s like LOL NOPE re: the party, so her mom is predictably frustrated, but don’t worry, her frustration quickly melts into righteous parental rage when she finds Hanna’s flask. She warns Hanna that she needs to stay in control as long as Ali’s kidnapper is still on the loose, and Hanna’s eyeballs roll right out of her head.

Oh man, did I forget to take my toys out of the dishwasher?

Oh man, did I forget to take my toys out of the dishwasher?


In another dimension, Aria and her mom are being questioned by Lieutenant Tanner about the break-in at Hanna’s house. Tanner asks when Aria met Ezra, and she lies and says on the first day of school, so Pull-No-Punches Tanner follows up with “but you guys boinked on the reg, yeah?” and then goes on to suggest that it’s possible Ezra was also involved with Shana, which: HA, but also who even knows, at this point. Aria looks like Tanner just took the last blue Fla-Vor-Ice so now she has to have orange.

I just wanted a blue tongue so I could make jokes about eating out Smurfette.

I just wanted a blue tongue so I could make jokes about eating out Smurfette.

After the interrogation, Aria’s mom is like, “listen, I know you’re the Belle to Ezra’s Beast, but Tanner is just doing her job, sooooooooo,” but Aria jams her fingers in her ears and sashays away.

I hope this scene goes on for another minute, I just really found my Dawson's Creek light.

I hope this scene goes on for another minute, I just really found my Dawson’s Creek light.


Ali catches up with Spencer in the hallways and reminds her that the show is called Pretty Little LIARS so she has to LIE when Tanner inevitably questions her. She goes on to say that “If one of us falls, we all fall, and A wins.” This doesn’t seem strictly true, but I am willing to buy into it so the rest of the show makes sense. Anyway, Ali is pissed at everyone, I don’t know, everyone on this show needs to drink some tea and watch an episode of Bob’s Burgers or something.

You might think it upset me that Paul Metzler had decided to run against me, but nothing could be further from the truth. He was no competition for me, it was like apples and oranges.

You might think it upset me that Paul Metzler had decided to run against me, but nothing could be further from the truth. He was no competition for me, it was like apples and oranges.


The we Boot Scootin’ Boogie over to the swim coach’s office where our dear homosexual Emily is interviewing for a position as assistant coach. A couple snappy lines of dialog later, and she’s got the job! She responds to this by immediately looking in a confidential binder of locker assignments to find Noel Kahn’s locker because who has even one second to waste before abusing their position of authority, I mean really.

These ARE replica Xena wrist guards, thanks for noticing!

These ARE replica Xena wrist guards, thanks for noticing!

Emily The Professional later breaks into Noel’s locker and steals his keys!

Grand Theft Lesbian

Grand Theft Lesbian


Then we dig our pogo sticks out of the back of our closets and hop on over to Caleb’s apartment, where Spencer is having a Real Talking with him about feeding into Hanna’s self-destructive patterns. More importantly, we learn than Hanna hasn’t told Caleb about Zack, so right now Hanna’s storyline involves a lot of people talking at and about her but no one really listening to what she has to say.

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You know I can only sing the Joanne part

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You know you’re the more Maureen out of the two of us.


Back in the choir room (#continuity from the last episodes), Alison and Hanna are celebrating their one millionth conversation about how their group is falling apart. Hanna tells Ali that her stunts affect other people, which really does seem to be something Ali doesn’t realize or care about, but since this is national No One Listens To Hanna Day, Ali patly ignores it. Hanna tells Ali to stay with one of the other girls because U-Hauling makes her uncomfortable.

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Seeing the faces of the Final Five

Just then, like a shooting star, Jenna appears to make our queer dreams come true! Typical passive-aggressive conversation happens for a while, and then:

Ali: Wait. How’d you do it?
Jenna: What?
Ali: Shana.

PLL509-00083

Dear reader, I have to tell you, there was a full beat where I thought Ali was asking Jenna how lesbians have sex. But no, Alison just wants to know how Jenna “turned Shana against (her).” Boooooo. The answer is “we were DATING,” but Jenna says it was Ali’s fault Shana hated her, which is probably also true but avoids queer subtext, so WHATEVER, SCRIPTWRITERS.

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Stop looking at my ass!


Time for an indie song montage! Aria texts Ezra that Tanner is asking questions about Shana and then pointedly doesn’t let Hanna sit with her. I don’t understand. If any of these people were actually friends, I feel like at some point one of them would say to Hanna “listen, clearly you’re going through a lot right now, do you want to get coffee and talk about how you’re feeling? What can I do to help you?” I mean really. This is crazy. These people are the worst.

Whatever, at least I have this sick jacket

Whatever, at least I have this sick jacket

Elsewhere in the indie song, Spencer is at the eye doctor getting her eyes dilated. Through a blurry haze, she sees Jenna and Sydney in matching cosplay of the twins from The Shining. She tries to take a picture, but it’s rude to take pictures of cosplayers without asking, so the twins leave before she has a chance to.

Prepare for trouble! Make it double!

Prepare for trouble! Make it double!

The indie song fades away as Emily breaks into Noel’s car. She finds an envelop of stalker pictures of Alison that would disprove the kidnapping and also the tape recorder that she presumably heard last night. Why did he keep this stuff in his car? That’s the real mystery here, Emily.

This mudwrestling photoshop is hot, but I wish they'd spent more time on Paige

This mudwrestling photoshop is hot, but I wish they’d spent more time on Paige

Spencer calls Em to tell her about the “two Jennas,” and Em tells Spencer about the pictures. Spencer gets a note from A in the form of an eye chart and continues to be surprised when shit like this happens.

Turn around, bright eyes

Turn around, bright eyes


We’re almost halfway through the episode, which means we’re long overdue for a scene with a dude who’s into underage girls! Aria returns home and tells Zack that Hanna isn’t coming to the BIG ENGAGEMENT PARTY because she isn’t feeling well, but Zack plays it cool and seems only passively interested. Ugh, I hate him so much.

Sit on a cactus, you off-brand Jason Stackhouse

Sit on a cactus, you off-brand Jason Stackhouse


Meanwhile at the cosplaying optometrist, Spencer is back in the waiting room wearing Daft Punk sunglasses.

What do you mean you've never seen Tron?

What do you mean you’ve never seen Tron?

Emily shows up to be the other Daft Punk dude, but before they can make it through even one chorus of “Get Lucky,” Sydney and Jenna pop into the waiting room! Ahh!

Let's get together, yeah yeah yeah

Let’s get together, yeah yeah yeah

Emily whips off her sunglasses in the most Jurassic Park way imaginable so she can better interrogate Syd on her secret friendship with Jenna. Jenna keeps talking over Sydney, which prompts what will surely be the best line of the episode:

PLL509-00118

And then whoooooosh, the terrible twosome is gone. No one asked them about their matching outfits, though, which seems like an oversight.

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Intern Grace

Grace Ellis has been writing and making hack-job graphics for Autostraddle since 2011 and is a co-creator and co-writer of the comic book series Lumberjanes. She is mostly an intern in name only. (Mostly.) She lives in Columbus, Ohio because why anything. Also, she wants to write the Black Widow movie and feels like if she just keeps telling people, eventually she will be allowed to do it. She has a Twitter and a Tumblr, both of which are pretty above average.

Grace has written 89 articles for us.

24 Comments

  1. I also hate when people are like “can we talk later” and I’m like “sure let me just take a Xanax so my heart doesn’t explode before the aforementioned later” JUST TELL ME NOW!!!!

    That is also how I feel when I watch this show, I JUST WANT ANSWERS!

  2. Paige dating a blonde, :D yieeeee! Get your girl back! Perform ala anna kendrick. Emily sing!
    “Don’t you, forget about me (just the way you are)
    As you walk on by, will you call my name…”

  3. “Sit on a cactus, you off-brand Jason Stackhouse”

    I feel like every man on this show is an off brand version of a man on a better show, like Caleb is Tim Riggins. Actually this could go for most shows on abc family. I wonder when the lying game is coming back on. Anyhow this is hilarious I’m gonna finish reading it now.

  4. Am I a bad person for wishing for some Melissa/Ali flashbacks, practicing, I don’t know..linedancing?

  5. I’m just glad they finally wrapped up the Melissa’s Big Secret plot.

    I want to know what Aria told Mona in that theatre though.

    • Aria was whispering sweet nothings to Mona, asking her to wait for her in the bathroom for some making out?

      #Monaria works really well as a hashtag, I don’t know

  6. I may just be naively hopeful, but I disagree about what the show is doing with Ezra/Zach. I think Aria realizes that everyone’s–but mainly Hannah’s–reaction to Zach was about more than him being engaged. She is now looking at an adult male being inappropriate with an underage girl from the outside and is seeing that it is creepy. When Emily mentioned that she got help from Ezra, Aria looked distinctly uncomfortable.

    At least I really hope that they were just messing with us for the first three and a half seasons by saying that Ezria was romantic.

  7. 1. I absolutely thought Aria was full on going to kiss Mona and I was so much more into it than I thought I would be.

    2. Am I the only one who loves Ali and Emily and assumes that Ali is not evil because it’s too obvious? And who really wants Paige to get the hell away from this insanity and live her deserved life as the swimming Shane of Stanford?

    3. All of this was really hard to type because my eyes literally rolled out of my head during the Ravenswood fireflies nonsense and I haven’t yet been able to find them.

  8. Yay! I’ve been waiting for you to recap more PLL Grace! Fantastic work! :D Paige is back next week and in the Christmas special so things are looking up. <3

    Am I the only one who thinks Paige should have been wearing something like Mike did to her date? I mean Lindsey is gorgeous no matter what but the dress seemed a strange choice for Paige.

      • I feel they are trying to “feminize” her character honestly. I’ve read that a lot of the fanbase dislikes Paige and maybe they figured “oh a dress will fix that” or something ridiculous. Like they decided straight people can’t handle a MOC character?

        • Oh I thought that was the whole idea — that she was dressing like that specifically to impress this new girl instead of dressing like herself. Because i feel like outside of that scene, her wardrobe choices have gotten more tomboyish over time.

        • maybe paige should have just worn this outfit again instead. I would have been okay with that:

  9. Jesus I love this stupid show so flipping much. I want to quit so hard. But I won’t. Ever. I’ll follow you into the dark, PLL.

    Also Intern Grace I love your recaps even more than I love everything Hanna wears and I routinely google “PLL Hanna Style WANT” so that’s a lot.

    Also also, wtf with the fireflies. The hell was that nonsense?

  10. I’m so behind on this show (actually now I’m caught up to this point but I don’t have cable so I can’t watch the finale until tomorrow ANYWAY…)
    I just have to go on record that Hanna is my forever favorite. She’s the actual best and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

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